Monthly Archives: September 2015

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It started out looking like this…And slowly but surely, became this…From sheep to baby blanket… It’s the first time I’ve ever accomplished the whole process from start to finish in many many years of wanting it to happen!

In between the beginning and the end, there was a whole slew of processes. If you’ve been following along with our stories in this space for some time now, you may recall the tending and shepherding of the sheep all through the cold winter months. Or even before that, my family’s trip to Pennsylvania to fetch my flock of Shetlands and then being crammed in the truck like sardines for the long haul. Then spring arrived and shearing needed to happen. Remember when the Hill and Hollow crew came to save the day with their electric sheep shears? And remember not quite as long ago when my family had an overnight stay in a hotel and as my luggage I took a dirty sheep’s fleece for scouring in the hotel bathtub? And the borrowed drum carder? And all of the spinning? And then the indigo dyeing? (Which was a whole process in and of itself with the seeding, weeding, growing and harvesting!) Finally, my favorite part of the process, the hours and hours of knitting… knitting while the kids swam in the creek, or in the early gray mornings, or while I waited for supper to cook, or while I accompanied Eric for chores (but not being able to walk and actually help out with chores because of my leg. Moral support is good too!). It is a long-winded process I will admit! But it’s also incredibly satisfying…(You can see the color change between dye lots… I wasn’t totally thrilled with this feature and did try to overdye the whole blanket to make the blue more consistent, but alas, there is still a definite line. Oh, well. Maybe next year when the indigo is ready, I will try again.)

When I finally finished the baby blanket, the kids asked me how much I would charge if I were to sell the blanket. I just had to laugh.

So the blanket is all finished. Now I just need a baby to wrap up in it…

Cleaning up a pile of papers by my side of the desk, I ran into this jewel of a story, which I transcribed from the mouth of my then four year old daughter:

“So, this Unicorn has born before everything else, even before Hansel and Gretel, a long long time ago. She didn’t even need a mom or dad, she just came out of her own belly and she could take care of herself. She was the first creature.

She walked around looking at things, and then she walked into the jungle where Mowgli lived. First she didn’t recognize him, then she did. She and Mowgli made friends.

One day Mowgli realized she wanted him to j

ump onto her back, and when he did, she ran off, out of the jungle, and all the buffalos followed, and they ran out into the hills, and then they were tired, so Mowgli stretched out his feet and they rested.

The Unicorn and Mowgli went all around the world. They could hardly stop. They were going so fast Mowgli could hardly see anything. They only stopped when they needed to eat or sleep.

When they saw clouds puffed up they knew it was going to rain. They ran so fast so the rain couldn’t get them.”

Like this:

i have to admit i love it when my birthday lands on a market day. really. this particular september 26th i landed on the first delivery of our fall extension. i tend to seek out well wishes more than anything on my birthday and i was pleasantly surprised by the hugs, the confections, and the love of my community on the day alone with my man. you see, my farm team tended the children and the homestead in our absence as my birthday gift so we had a market day and date wrapped up into one.

i was welcomed back onto the farm and celebrated again on sunday with my loved ones and an eclipse themed cake. we stayed up later than usual into the night to watch the skies festivities.

a good year has passed and i am quite sure another lies ahead. thanks for all the birthday love y’all.